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SENATE HOLDS UP DUTY EXEMPTION

The Senate filibuster over the civil rights bill may produce adverse effects on the economy of the Virgin Islands.

Congressional sources in Washington said over the week­end that it appeared likely that Congress would be unable to complete legislative action on a measure to extend beyond April 1 the additional $100 customs­duty exemption for United States residents returning from the Virgin Islands.

That exemption, In effect since July, 1961, will expire at the end of this month unless the Senate Finance Committee can clear the measure for full Senate action.

Harm to Tourism Predicted

A committee spokesman said that as long as the Senate ad­hered to its schedule of early sessions, beginning at 10 A.M. each day, it would be impossible for the finance group to take up the measure, already passed by the House.

When the House Ways and Means Committee held hear­ings on the measure earlier this month, a spokesman for the Office of Territories of the De­partment of the Interior testi­fied that a lapse of the special customs legislation would ad­versely affect the “tourist in­dustry of the islands, and in turn, be harmful to the entire economy of the islands.”

According to a study of Cus­toms declarations conducted for the department by the Bureau of Customs, about 11 per cent, or 27,000 of the 256,132 tourists who visited the Virgin Islands during a 41/2‐month period last year took advantage of the extra $100 duty‐free allowance.

Unless the bill is enacted into law, residents returning to the United States would be en­titled only to a $100 personal exemption.

Under the provisions of the House measure, the additional $100 exemption would be ex­tended to June 30, 1965.